APIS MELLIFICA VARIOUS RACES. 



15 



THE COMMON HIVE OR HONEY BEE. 



(A2)is melUfica Linn.) 



Besides the common browu or German bee imported from Europe to 

 this country some time in tlie seventeenth century and now widely 

 spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific, sev(Tal other races have been 

 brought here — the Italian in 18G0, and later the Egyptian, the Cyprian, 

 the Syrian, the Palestine, the Carniolan (Plate I, figs. 1, 4, and 5), and 

 the Tunisian. Of these the brown or German, the Italian, and, in a 

 few apiaries, the Caruiolan bees are ])robably the only races existing 

 pure in the United States, the others haviug become more or less 

 hybridized with the brown race or among themselves or their cultiva- 

 tion having been discontinued. It should also be remarked that so 

 few have kept their Carniolans pure that purchasers who wish this 

 race should use caution iu their selection or else import their own 

 breeding queens. There are many breeders of Italians from whom 

 good stock can be obtained. Egyptian bees 

 were tried some thirty years ago, but only to a 

 very limited extent, and, as has been the case 

 with Syrians and Palestiues imported in 1880, 

 and whose test was more prolonged and general, 

 they were condemned as inferior in temper and 

 wintering qualities to the races of bees already 

 here, it not being thought that these points of 

 inferiority were suflSciently balanced by their 

 greater i)rolificness and their greater energy in 

 honey collecting. 



The Tunisians, for similar reasons and also 

 because they are great collectors of propolis, 

 never became popular, although a persistent 

 attemi:)t was made a few years since to create 

 sale for them under the new name of '-Punic 

 bees," the undesirable qualities of the race hav- 

 ing previously been made known, under the orig- 

 inal name, by the author, who had tested them carefully for several 

 years — a part of the time iu Tunis. 



Cyprians.— Bees of the race native to the Island of Cyprus have pro- 

 duced the largest yield of honey on record from a single colony in this 

 country, 1,000 pounds iu one season. Everyone who has fairly tested 

 them admits their wonderful honey-gathering powers and their perse- 

 vering courage in their labors even when the fiowers are secreting 

 honey but scantily. They winter well and defend their hives against 

 robber bees and other enemies with greater energy than any otlier 

 known race. When storing honey Cyprians fill the cells (piite full 

 before sealing, and thus the capping rests against the honey, present- 



Fig. 4. — Worker-cells of com- 

 mon honeyhei-'i Apis vicUxfica) : 

 natural size. (Original.) 



